Two Teens Wounded in Gang-Related Shooting Outside Eden Prairie Homecoming Game

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — A packed homecoming football game at Eden Prairie High School dissolved into chaos Friday night when gunfire erupted in the stadium parking lot, wounding two teenagers and sending thousands of spectators scrambling for the exits. Police say the shooting was gang-related. The school cancelled Saturday's homecoming dance less than 24 hours later.

The shots rang out shortly before 9 p.m. local time in the parking lot of Aerie Stadium, where Eden Prairie was hosting rival Minnetonka for its homecoming game, according to the Eden Prairie Police Department. A large fight had broken out on the west side of the stadium just before the gunfire, and officers had already responded to break it up and remove several people from the area when the shooting started.

The two wounded teens, ages 17 and 18, were identified by police as Somali nationals who were known to officers. Neither teen was a student at Eden Prairie or Minnetonka High Schools. The 17-year-old remained hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries as of Saturday; the 18-year-old was discharged from the hospital Saturday, according to police.

Panic in the stands

Inside the stadium, the first sign of trouble for most spectators came over the public-address system. The PA announcer suddenly directed everyone to evacuate through the south end of the stadium, and thousands of fans — families with young children, students, athletes — poured toward the exits at once.

“Everybody was just running in one direction,” 11-year-old spectator Addison Stetcher told KARE 11, describing the rush. “People were climbing the fences and that kind of scared me.”

Wally Langfellow, the play-by-play announcer in the press booth, has called high school football for more than three decades. He told FOX 9 he had never seen anything like Friday night: “In my 30-plus years of doing high school football, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Langfellow also recalled what officers told him about the parking lot lockdown that followed the shooting. Police made clear that vehicles would stay put while investigators worked the scene: “[Police] said, ‘You’re not going to be able to get it at least for a couple of hours. They’re clearing the crime scene now.’” The lot stayed locked down overnight, with cars held until Saturday morning.

What police have said

The Eden Prairie Police Department issued a statement Saturday afternoon confirming the basic facts: the shooting took place in the Aerie Stadium parking lot, the two wounded teens were Somali nationals known to police, and investigators believe the violence was gang-related. FOX 9, citing a law-enforcement source, reported that the violence involved a beef between local Somali immigrant gangs, though police have not publicly identified a particular gang.

Police Chief Matt Sackett said investigators were searching for at least one vehicle believed to have been used to flee the scene, though he said they did not yet have a confirmed make or model to release. KSTP reported Saturday that officials still did not have sufficiently specific suspect information to release to the public. No arrests have been announced.

Investigators have not said whether the wounded teens took part in the fight that preceded the shots, nor have they publicly confirmed the type of weapon used. No charges have been filed.

Homecoming dance cancelled

School leaders moved quickly to cancel the next major event on the homecoming calendar. Principal Dr. Jaysen Anderson posted on the Eden Prairie Schools Facebook page explaining why Saturday's dance would not go forward.

“While we believe we would have the planning, resources and support to make tonight’s event safe and enjoyable, holding a dance less than 24 hours after a trauma in our community feels out of place,” Anderson wrote.

The decision left students without the traditional homecoming dance that usually closes the weekend. The football game itself had already ended in panic rather than celebration. Families who came for a Friday night contest instead faced locked gates, a crime-scene perimeter, and a scramble for safety.

What remains unresolved

The public record stays thin beyond what police have confirmed: the ages, nationality, and prior familiarity of the two wounded teens, their hospital status, the gang-related assessment, and the large fight on the west side of the stadium that came first. Suspect names have not been released. Investigators have not provided a public timeline of shots fired, the number of rounds, or how many people were involved in the fight that led up to the gunfire.

Officials will need to determine who fired the shots, what sparked the earlier fight, and whether the wounded teens or others present had direct ties to the dispute. They will also need to establish whether the violence was planned around the homecoming crowd or spilled over from a separate conflict into the stadium parking lot.

A second homecoming shooting in one weekend

The Eden Prairie shooting came less than 48 hours before a far deadlier homecoming-weekend shooting in Vienna, Georgia, where two men were killed and 35 people were injured when gunfire erupted at a block party of more than 1,000 people early Sunday morning. That gathering coincided with Dooly County High School's homecoming weekend but was not a school-sponsored event. No link between the two shootings has been suggested by authorities.

Read our full coverage of the Vienna, Georgia homecoming block party shooting.

More crime coverage at Previously's news hub.